Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 | Page 4

most to The People, and upon which the machine centered its
efforts, has been selected for detailed consideration. On the score of the
moral issues, the Anti-Racetrack Gambling bill has been taken as the
most important; while the Direct Primary bill is dealt with as the chief
political issue, and the railroad regulation measures as involving the
chief industrial issue. The story of the fight over these bills is the story
of the session of 1909. The events attending the passage of the
Anti-Racetrack Gambling bill, the amendment of the Direct Primary
bill, and the defeat of the Stetson Railroad Regulation bill, with the
attending incident of the passage of the Wright Railroad bill, show, as
nothing else can, how the machine controls and manipulates a
Legislature - and such is the purpose of this little volume.
The efforts of justice-loving men to simplify the criminal codes, to the
end that rich and poor alike may have equal opportunity in the trial
courts - not in theory alone but in fact - and the successful efforts of the
machine to block this reform, have made detailed consideration of the
defeat of the Commonwealth Club bills and the passage of the Wheelan
bills, and the so-called Change of Venue bill timely. And the story of
these measures illustrates again how the machine element defeats the
purpose of The People, and overrides what are the constitutional rights
- and should be rights in fact - of every American citizen.
Measures which involved no particular contest between the good
government and the machine forces - measures patched up by
interested parties and slipped through the Legislature without
opposition and generally without comment - although many of them of
great importance, are not touched upon. The histories of those selected
for consideration show the machine, or if you like, the system, at its
work of passing undesirable measures, and of blocking the passage of
good measures. If the Story of the Session of the California Legislature

of 1909 assist the citizens of California to understand how this is done;
if it give them that knowledge of the weakness, the strength, the
purposes, and the affiliations of the Senators and Assemblymen who
sat in the Legislature of 1909, a knowledge of which the machine
managers have had heretofore a monopoly; if it point the way for a new
method of publicity to crush corruption and to promote reform - a way
which others better prepared for the work than I, may, in California and
even in other States, follow - the labor of preparing this volume for the
press will have been justified.
Franklin Hichborn.
Santa Clara, Cal., July 4, 1909.

Chapter I.

Breaking Ground.
Although the Reform Element had a Majority in Both Senate and
Assembly, Good Bills Were Defeated, and Vicious Measures Passed -
Three Reasons for This: (1) Reform Element Was Without Plan of
Action, (2) Was Without Organization; (3) The Machine Was
Permitted to Organize Both Senate and Assembly.

The personnel of the California Legislature of 1909, was, all things
considered, better than that of any other Legislature that has assembled
in California in a decade or more. There were, to be sure, in both
Senate and Assembly men who were constantly on the wrong side of
every question affecting the moral, political or industrial well-being of
the State, but a majority of each House labored for the passage of good
laws, laws which would not only silence and satisfy constituents, but
prove effective and accomplish the purpose for which they had been
drawn. Just as earnestly as they worked for the passage of good laws, a
majority of the members of the Senate as well as a majority of the
members of the Assembly opposed the passage of vicious measures,
and of measures ostensibly introduced to work needed reform but
drawn in such a manner as to be, from a practical standpoint,
ineffective.

And yet, regardless of the purpose of this majority, the so-called
"Change of Venue" [1] bill was passed, and the "Judicial Column" bill,
intended to take the Judiciary out of politics, was denied passage. The
infamous "Wheelan bills," aimed at the complication of the Grand jury
system, went through both Houses, while the Commonwealth Club
bills, drawn to simplify the methods of criminal procedure, were held
up and eventually defeated. The ineffective Wright Railroad Regulation
bill became a law, while the Stetson Railroad measure effective as
finally amended - was rejected. The provision in the Direct Primary bill
for the selection of United States Senators by State-wide vote was
stricken out, and the meaningless advisory, district vote plan
substituted.
Certainly, the accomplishment of the Legislature does not line with the
purpose of a majority of its members. The voter is naturally asking why
the majority in